The specific aims of this competitive renewal, requesting 2 additional years of NIA-SERCA funding, are two-fold: one didactic, the other methodologic (representing the application of acquired skills to a research project). The didactic goal is to provide training in sympathetic nervous system (SNS) physiology, with particular attention to patterns of SNS response to challenge and the possible effects of age, gender and psychosocial factors on patterns of response. This training will complement by SERCA training in HPA axis physiology during the initial 3 years of SERCA funding. This combined training will provide a greater breadth of knowledge relating to two major neuroendocrine regulatory systems which will allow me to pursue a more broad-based program of research. The research goal of this SERCA proposal is to apply my acquired knowledge of neuroendocrinology and my existing substantive and methodologic expertise in psychosocial epidemiology to designing and implementing a research project. This project is designed: 1) to address substantive and methodologic gaps in the literature that I have identified during my current SERCA training and, 2) to test hypotheses regarding the effects of age, gender and psychosocial characteristics on patterns of neuroendocrine response to challenge.